


Wintercearig

by adastreia_writes



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Deaf!Lance, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Gen, Keith/Lance - Freeform, Most Of These Characters Are Just Mentioned - Freeform, Panic Attacks, like if you squint real hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-13 20:13:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9140512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adastreia_writes/pseuds/adastreia_writes
Summary: wintercearig: "winter-sorrowful", a deep sadness, comparable to the cold of winterOR Lance realizes how important noise is to someone who's never lived without it





	

Lance had never been on good terms with literature; his dyslexia had prevented him from liking a subject based on reading long pieces of text. It was a shame, though. It was an interesting thing, to analyze poetry and novels. He recalled being extremely fond of oxymorons. He found the way that opposite words clashed, yet still made sense, fascinating. Had his life been a novel taught at schools, he decided that the students would most likely find that the oxymoron that described it was this: silence is deafening.

  
It hadn’t quite registered until he found himself in a giant space castle ship with only six more people in it, but he soon realized that it had been true long before that. You could find it in the way his family talked over each other so it was never quiet, in the way that he never took his headphones off when he’d finally managed to get his very own room so he couldn’t hear the emptiness of it, in the way his non-stop and nearly absent minded chatter echoed in the Castle of Lions in an attempt to make it feel less threatening. And that’s where the tragic irony would come in. Because the time that it was most obvious, was when he had stepped out of a healing pod and all he could hear was silence. It was too quiet and he knew because the hum of the machinery around him didn’t reach his ears, because he had been stumbling but he couldn’t hear his steps, because he had been speaking, but he couldn’t hear his voice, because he had seen Keith coming in, but he hadn’t heard the soft _swoosh_ of the door opening, because Keith’s mouth was moving, but no word filled the air.

He felt like he had been trapped in a void and, thinking back on it, he could honestly say that there hadn’t been a more terrifying moment in his life. He remembered his heart hammering his ribcage frantically, as if it had been trying to leave his chest, his vision blurring and his lungs weighting down in his sternum. He remembered his dangerously shallow breaths. He could also remember the panic settling in as he had shakily brought his hands in his hair, gripping in tightly and then screaming. Just screaming, continuously. He hadn’t stopped when his eyes had stung with tears that had run freely down his face, nor when he had felt Keith’s arms wrapping around him and keeping him in place. He hadn’t stopped, even when his strength had left him and he’d sunk down to his knees, dragging Keith with him. He’d screamed and sobbed and shouted, but the only way he knew that, was because his throat had felt as if it had been scraped with a hoe.

It took Shiro coming in to calm him down from his intense panic attack that day. He had been the only one with enough experience to do so. And after that, Coran and Hunk had to spend a painful hour explaining what was going on to Lance, Coran talking, and Hunk writing it all down for Lance.

_“Untreatable damage to the_ _cochlear nerve.”_

_“You’re 70% deaf.”_

_“We’ll provide you with hearing aids but it’s not certain that it will work_ _.”_

Those were the only things that he had registered. He couldn’t bring himself to pay closer attention, not with thoughts of his mother’s laugh or his sister’s playful squeals or his brother’s annoyed shouts bouncing around in his head. He had realized woefully that he most probably would never hear any of those ever again, and dread had burdened his shoulders.

And now, after three months of a mute world, of struggling to come to terms with his condition, of sign language classes with Shiro, Allura and Coran, of not being able to communicate well enough with the rest of his team and of spending his free time in Blue so he could feel her purr comfortingly, Hunk and Pidge were finally done with his hearing aids.

Allura had found him that morning in Blue’s hangar dozing off between her enormous paws. He had been woken up by Blue’s gentle nudge, with the face of the princess above him.

“What is it?” he’d asked, his eyes dashing around his surroundings.

 _You need to go to Green’s hangar later. Hunk and Pidge are almost done with your hearing aids,_ she’d signed once his attention was on her. Or at least, that’s what he thought since what he really understood was just words like ‘Green’, ‘hangar’, ‘Hunk’, ‘Pidge’, ‘done’ and ‘hearing aids’.

Admittedly, unlike his teammates who had jumped at the idea, Lance, in his stage of denial, hadn’t taken well to learning sign language. Only after realizing how frustrating and time-consuming it was to wait for others to write down what they wanted to tell him and a firm lecture in the form of an essay on how important it would be for future diplomatic missions did he let Shiro teach him ASL and Allura and Coran AlSL and other alien sign languages. At times, he confused the signs from the different languages. Other times, he just didn’t get it and it pissed him off so bad. It was hard, and he just wanted it to end.

Which is why he spent an entire hour before he went to get his hearing aids pacing back and forth in the common room, anxiousness creeping up his body. Consumed in his own worry, he didn’t notice Keith entering until he felt a light tap on his shoulder and he turned, only to come face to face with Keith’s concerned expression, eyebrows scrunched up, mouth slightly agape.

 _“You okay?”_ Keith seemed to mouth. Lance had noticed that he generally preferred to let him try to read his lips instead of signing what he wanted to say. Talking and bickering with Lance apparently seemed to be a habit not easily changed at that point.

“Yeah. Fine. Just… Just a bit nervous about the hearing aids.” Lance replied with a crooked smile.

Keith’s mouth formed a small ‘oh’ as he realized what was happening. Then, he offered a reassuring smile and placed a hand on his shoulder.

_“It will be fine. Don’t worry.”_

Lance laughed quietly, breathlessly and looked down at his hands that were fiddling with his jacket’s zipper.

“Thanks, Keith.” He said, with an awkward pause taking place before he looked back up to Keith’s face.

He and Keith had a rocky relationship from the start. As his self-proclaimed rival, Lance was determined to one-up on him, trying to prove his own worth, and being so competitive left little space for a friendship to sprout. Soon, though, he’d started to appreciate Keith more, both for his abilities and him as a person. Besides, with only seeing six people every day for months on end and fighting together for the well-keeping of the entire universe, they were bound to go from rivals to friends. Not to mention how in sync they were in battle. That made them deadly to the enemy, and Shiro took advantage of it as soon as he noticed, sending them on missions together. It built more trust between them. They were on a mission together when Lance’s accident happened too. After the explosion, Keith had to drag an unconscious Lance to his lion and return to the Castle of Lions, only for this tragedy to ensue. Lance thought that Keith partially blamed himself for what had happened to him since, suddenly, he was there to help Lance with anything he wanted, taking care of him in those first few days out of the pod, holding him through his breakdowns, talking him out of his panic attacks. Keith had seen him at his weakest. So, Lance guessed, there was no harm in confiding in him once more.

“Keith, I’m really scared. What if they won’t work? What if I won’t be able to hear? What will I do? What will Voltron do? I can’t keep relying on Blue, hoping she knows what she’s doing and directing me-“he’d started, but he was stopped abruptly by Keith waving his hands furiously in his face to stop him. When he did, Keith opened and closed his mouth many times, as if trying to say something but not being sure how. In the end, he settled for sign language.

 _Don’t be scared. Pidge and Hunk are geniuses. The hearing aids will work. And even if they don’t, you’ll still have Blue, and the rest of the team, and…_ His hands fell a little as he hesitated for a second, but then he continued, looking Lance right in the eye.

_And you’ll have me._

Now, if you asked Lance, he would deny tearing up, or suddenly feeling warm inside. Because yes, he didn’t get all the words, and Keith probably messed up some as well, but the last part was perfect and clear, and he that’s what mattered.

Keith himself was as red as his lion and was looking at his shoes with a newfound wave of interest. Three months ago, Lance would have teased him. Now, he was so grateful to the Red Paladin that he couldn’t find it in him to do so. Instead, he offered a toothy grin, in an attempt to both show gratitude at his words and trick himself into thinking that he wasn’t nervous at all.

“I’ll go then,” he said and inhaled shakily, “See you on the other side, I guess.”

And then he left.

*******

To say that Hunk and Pidge put a lot of work in the hearing aids was an understatement. They were specifically designed to help him hear despite being 70% deaf, they were waterproof, they had a translator installed and they generally looked like a cool earpiece Allura would give them for an important mission.

 _I hope they work_ , Hunk had written on a piece of paper before handing them to Lance. Under other circumstances, Lance would probably have taken the new piece of impressive technology in his hands carefully as if it was the most delicate thing in the world. This wasn’t anything like that. He was desperate for it, he _needed_ to hear voices and noise again, and the answer was right there in his palm.

He put them in his ears eagerly, perhaps even desperately, and searched in a hurry for the way to turn them on. At first, the same silence that had been haunting him for all these months remained, and he felt as if his heart had plummeted off a cliff. But then, small sounds started making their way to his ears; the machinery that Pidge had scattered around her lion, the intake of a breath.

“Guys..?” he tried it out, and he nearly broke down then and there. That was his voice. The one he hadn’t heard since forever, the one he refused not to use, even when trying to learn sign language.

Hunk and Pidge looked at each other before turning back to him, eyes hopeful.

“Lance? Buddy?” Hunk said hesitantly. Lance teared up and grinned. He heard that. He really did.  

“Hunk. You and Pidge are the smartest people in the universe, you know that? I can’t believe you made it work.” Lance said, making his friends mirror his grin and jump up and down in rejoice.

“Oh my God!” Pidge exclaimed, eyes shining, before proceeding to grab Hunk’s forearm in excitement, “I can’t believe it worked! Hunk, it worked!”

Hunk returned the excited looks, before pulling a crying Lance into his bear hug. He didn’t seem to mind that Lance was crying, that he could barely hold his hiccups and sniffs and sobs in, or that his clothes were getting wet from the tears. And it doesn’t matter, really, because his best friend can hear again, and he’s happy and that’s the most important thing. Pidge joined the group hug not long after.

In mere moments, the entire Castle had been informed. It was happy, and tearful, and full of loud talking and making noises to fill the void and celebrate the fact that even though he’s kind of broken, their Blue Paladin can only get better from now on.


End file.
